Here we are on Christmas morning 2021 with 29 days and counting before we leave for San Antonio, TX for Tammy's surgery. The whole purpose of this surgery is to remove the implants with reconstruction using her own natural body parts. There are so many complications from having foreign materials in her body that we both feel strongly to get them out. While we are so thankful that it has been 10 years already and she remains cancer free, we do not want to deal with this surgery again in another 10 years.
I will start with the fact that God has guided us this entire time. Tammy started this journey at the beginning of the 2021 with lots and lots of research. There are few plastic surgeons across the US that specialize in breast cancer reconstruction. Most of them do not take insurance or are out of network. It has been a bit of an up and down roller coaster ride with getting excited about a surgeon only to find out that they are out of network. One she followed is PRMA surgeons in San Antonio, TX. They have performed over 10,000 reconstruction surgeries. Compare this to the local Minnesota surgeons we found that have only done this procedure in the low double digits. It was no brainer choice. Initially, Tammy did not find PRMA as an in-network provider. She kept seeing videos and posts from them. They have an amazing pain protocol that greatly reduces the pain and recovery time. This was once big factor in choosing them. Tammy explained her first surgery as "being hit by a Mack truck in the chest", not something I would wish on my worst enemy. I still vividly remember the pain she was in while I was helpless to do anything about it. Multiple times she commented that she wished they were in network. We moved forward with scheduling a date for last June with a local surgeon here in MN. Tammy was very nervous and had big concerns about this choice, but felt we had no other option. A month or so before her scheduled surgery, she did an insurance search under the doctors name versus the practice. Tammy came running into my office super excited (more than you normally see her excited about something). When I double checked that they were in-network, we both thanked God for His timing and direction. While it has been a long journey from initial paperwork with PRMA to finally getting a surgery date, it is well worth the wait. In August we made a trip down there for a consultation and to meet the surgeon. While the travel down was quite an adventure alone, we will leave that story for a different time. We left feeling so excited and comfortable with this surgeon. He even had a funny sense of humor while being extremely serious about his work. After that visit, it was time to wait again and again and again. It took almost three months to confirm a surgery date. Which now brings us to start of this chapter of Tammy's story.
Please follow along with us on this journey. We appreciate and look forward to your prayers, encouragement and comments.
We thank you all now for your love and support!
